Variations on a Theme
by Lady Eldaelen
Summary: No matter the start, all paths lead to Truth. AU, manga, entire series spoilers. One shot. COMPLETE.


**Variations on a Theme  
****~ Lady Eldaelen ~**

It is seared into her memory, that sight at her front door. A suit of armor so large and bulky with blood caked on the metal where the rain hasn't washed it away, soaked into the cloth tied at the armor's waist and on the clothes of the body nestled tightly in the crook of its eerily trembling arm. Amidst the storm's rumbles and the armor's tinny shivers, she remembers the shallow breaths of her best friend's life fading away.

And the voice, frantic, desperate, oddly echoing like he's talking into a bowl. The unmistakable demands of Edward even when Ed himself is nowhere to be found.

"How long do I have to stand out here?! He's going to bleed to death."

* * *

The guy in the armor breaks his radio, but it is his gangly sidekick with the automail arm that fixes it. Alchemy. _Alchemists,_ way out here. He never thought he'd see the day. Aside from their favor with the Sun God, Liore isn't exactly known for much of anything. He accepts his radio with an amused grin. The boy offering it blushes, embarrassed.

"So you're the Fullmetal Alchemist? Because of the automail, right?"

It is a bizarre sight, a suit of armor bowling over such a slight kid, but neither reveal that it is anything but normal behavior. The kid silently picks himself up with an air of long-suffering and brushes dirt off his pants. The armor leans down, with a hint of mischief and smug pride, and the close-up details of a helmet crowd out his personal space.

"No, you idiot! The Fullmetal Alchemist is _me._"

* * *

Some of his precious last thoughts are spent dwelling not of his wife and daughter, but of the boys.

He remembers one night, several years earlier, waking to heavy paces even new carpet and a thick throw rug cannot completely muffle. He checks on Elysia, hands pillowed under her head and angelic face smoothed in peaceful slumber. Alphonse is looked in on next, limbs flung out in restlessness, body nearly diagonal on the bed. The whole of his left foot is planted firmly on the floor, metal toes glinting with small reflections from the hall light. His right hand is somewhere up near his mussed hair, the left clamped protectively over the seam of flesh and metal at his shoulder. Brows knit together as he hears the plaintive cry for _mom_ escape from weary dreams. Downstairs he finds the coffee table strewn with notes and books and pens. Edward is pacing a line between the window and the fireplace, swinging his pocket watch in aggressive circles by its chain. He doesn't stop his endless trek, metal joints creaking with each lumbering turn, but when he speaks, the words bend in unusual softness around his armor shell.

"He's my little brother." Such a simple statement, yet it explains everything. "I can't leave him like that, no matter what the cost."

The memory passes, _so many moments lost,_ and his body continues to fall.

_Gracia._

* * *

The question hangs in the air, as heavy as the weather is cold. Outside their tent the winds push frigid gusts through the cracks and pile snow around the edges so by morning it will take ten minutes just to dig their way out. The girl and the doctor have long since succumbed to sleep; it is just the boy who waits nervously for his response. Under all his clothes and as many blankets as can be spared the boy is still shivering and achy from the effects of the north mountain climate on his automail.

Yet there is a fire in those bright eyes, a fire he remembers once in his own. He knows what the boy is really asking, between the unspoken pauses around words. He knows because it is his own story, his and his brother's, retold in a slightly different way. The Fullmetal one understands there are bigger things to dwell on than himself, just as his own brother did, but it doesn't stop others from taking up worrying about their well-being on their behalf.

He wants to rub his brother's arm or perhaps press two fingers against the healed skin between his eyes or even just sigh loudly. What he does is hold the boy's gaze and offer the truth as solemnly as the question was posited.

_Oh, Ishballa, give me the words... _

"When I see your brother, when I feel what is unseen, he is no different than you or I. Of course he is human."

* * *

"You love her, right?"

The suit of armor in front of her otherwise known as Edward Elric goes completely still for one interminable pause, long enough for her to wonder if she has shocked the poor boy right out of it. His faculties return in a rush; between the raving denials and wild flailings, he pitches his chair backwards and tumbles to the floor with a deafening clatter.

She sips her tea while he rights himself, tries not to smile as he wipes invisible dust from his arms, a balm over his ruffled state of mind.

"It's Winry. I don't - she doesn't," he hesitates, "she deserves better."

She thinks of the scars on her back and the promises made and the gravity that two people can generate without ever touching and she understands more than he will ever hope to guess.

* * *

At the end of the world May finds herself utterly alone. Even with Xiao Mei on her head and a hundred people fighting around her, all she wants to do is cry.

"May, please." A heartbreaking voice cuts through her despair, asks her the unthinkable, makes her promise she will not say no. "You're the only one who can do this."

She knows he is right. He needs her just as much as she needs him. Together, they will not be alone.

The sacrifice leaves impossibly large voids and Alphonse bites back so much agony, refuses to let it pass through his lips, but she can see it all in his eyes. She does her best to stem the flow of blood, to ease his pain. The war rages on around them, the world continues to end and perhaps because of their joint efforts, has even sped up all the faster to its finale. She is not sure who is clinging more desperately to the other, but together they are not alone.

* * *

He is an expert in genetics, for the sole reason of having lived so long. It is easy to study the way genes are passed down when he can observe them span generations. He considers it a blessing that his younger son inherits Trisha's coloring. It would have been too much with her gone to see them both with his features. In their present conditions, he is spared from having to see a visage of his long-passed youth at all, though the scars they now bear are in many ways worse.

It is with no small irony that his first companion chooses his younger face to present to the world as its harbinger of death. Or that his firstborn takes it upon himself to save them all, a literal knight in shining armor.

When the dust settles and his son is left in pieces and everyone holds a collective breath as his friend from the flask poises to deliver that final blow, he works formulas in his head, trying to figure a way to get Edward out of there. And then the zing of blades, the crackle of energy, the rush of action. Here he is so caught up in _thinking_ and his youngest has already begun _doing_. Too late now to intervene, he can only watch the holes in Edward's armor fill with a duller alloy while Alphonse's metal limbs dissolve away.

His young son's terrified gasp is enough for everyone in earshot to flinch as he struggles to tilt his head into Edward's line of sight. Trembling and strong and so very brave, he leaves no room for argument.

"Brother. _Win._"

_This is the face of Trisha when she died. This is what I missed._

* * *

From the space Between Worlds, he Watches as Things Come To Pass, just as they should, just as he Saw, just as he Knows. They are all Part of Him, as he is Part of Them, Part of Everything, as it has always been, and is, and will be.

It is over.

It is over and they are all still there, those that should be. He watches The One search out The Other. He knows The One's thoughts as clearly as his own because They Are All One. He knows The One will draw a circle and gather The Other into his arms and activate the array because that is what he Would Do, that is what he Does. They Are All One.

And now They are together in the space Between Worlds.

Can it be called a Conversation when They Speak from the same place? Is it a sacrifice to Do what has already been Marked to happen? Can Anything be revealed when, on some level, Everything Is Already Known? Pieces that move Around and Within and Among themselves are still just Pieces of the Whole. They Are All One. That is What Matters.

"The door is over there."

They leave together, The One and The Other, each on their own two legs.

* * *

**Notes:** Originally posted on my livejournal. Inspired by prompt 110, Switch, over on lj's fma_fic_contest, but I didn't finish before the deadline. Typical.

* * *

122112 ff.n / 042011 lj


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